


Guilt Between the Lines

by Gemi



Category: TMNT (2007)
Genre: Angst, Guilt, Implied Onesided Love, Implied/Referenced Incest, Leo the hobo of the jungle, M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:02:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24929623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gemi/pseuds/Gemi
Summary: Leonardo was used to noise. Loud noise, background noise, any noise. He thought he had learnt how to focus despite it all. Except spending so long alone, in a loud jungle, seemed to have changed that.Leo tries to write a letter.
Relationships: Donatello/Leonardo (TMNT)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 27





	Guilt Between the Lines

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alessa_DC](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alessa_DC/gifts).



The jungle was humid and filled with sound. 

Normally he found it nice. Relaxing. Humid was good- Donatello had always liked to explain how much healthier they would have been growing up, if only they had lived somewhere more humid and warm than the sewers. Had whispered it, of course, and only to Leo. 

They wouldn’t want Splinter sad.

Sound was good, too. He honestly couldn’t remember ever being surrounded by silence. If not the ruckus of brothers or the snuffling snores of their father, there was always other sounds. Dripping water, the background sound of the tv always left on by accident. Even the muffled tremors of trains passing by not too far away, a soft roar he had to strain to hear but still there, in the background.

Humid and noise was  _ good _ .

  
Except when he was trying to write a letter.

Leonardo stared down at the paper he had pressed to his knee in an attempt to create a flat surface. The paper was yellowed with age and torn in one corner, ripped out from a forgotten book he had found on the edge of the village. It felt a bit too soft to be properly dry, the hole in it from where he had accidentally broken through with the pencil proof enough. As if a damp and broken piece of paper wasn’t making this hard enough, Leo was certain the loudest birds in the area had all migrated to the trees surrounding him.

That it would be so difficult to write a letter. Perhaps it was karma for the  _ reason _ he was trying. For not doing as expected.

For once, being selfish.

Even that felt false, though. He was not being selfish so much as he was  _ afraid _ . Fearless leader, unable to go back home because he was afraid. Would they laugh if they found out? Or would they turn away in disgust, knowing  _ what _ he was afraid of? That it was not fear so much as longing, and fear of  _ that _ . Of the meaning behind it. 

_ Absence makes the heart grow fonder _ , Donnie had said. Amused and teasing and a little frail around the edges. He had talked about Raph, about how perhaps there would be less arguments once Leo came back home. 

He had looked a little lost, when saying it. His hug had lingered, and Leonardo hadn’t made any attempt to break it, even when Raph made a too sharp comment about clinginess. Leo missed them all. 

Splinter, Raph, Mikey, Casey, April. 

Donatello.

Leo had always felt closer to Donnie. His brother was steady comfort personified, even when wearing his mad scientist goggles and elbows deep in gutted machines while muttering in languages none of them understood. Donnie had always been  _ grounding _ , and had claimed Leo was the same to him. 

He had always felt  _ warm _ around Donnie. Protective in a different way from how protective he was of the others. 

It often led to them sitting pressed together in the couch to better hear what the other said as Raph and Mikey loudly argued or cheered beside them. Led to Leo coaxing Donnie to bed, Donnie gently bullying him to rest. Tea and coffee exchanged too early and too late for them to be awake. The workaholics of the family. 

It had been easy to brush it off, before.

They were the  _ calm _ ones. Blue and purple, focus and logic. Of course he felt closest to Don, of course he prefered being paired off with Don. And if…  _ things _ happened sometimes, in the shower or late at night alone in his room, well. Hormones. All hormones. Nothing he ever let himself think about. Never let himself think of a face. Just a body, and if the body resembled- if- it was nothing to think about. 

Not until now, in a humid and loud jungle. 

But he couldn’t put  _ that _ down in a letter. Would be the worst way for them to find out what a freak he was. What a disaster. 

Leonardo stared at the blank, torn, damp paper.  _ Thap, thap _ went the pencil as he tapped it against his thigh, trying so hard to figure out what to write. How to write it. He had written before- several attempts, all thrown into the fire because what if they could see the truth between lines. What if Donnie figured out that Leo wanted-

A gunshot. 

Leo felt a burst of relief at the sound; a distraction. He hurriedly folded the paper into one of his many pockets, the pencil into another. Began to run towards the noise and pretended he wasn’t running away from his thoughts.

He would write it tomorrow. 

  
  
  


He didn’t. 

**Author's Note:**

> A gift to Alessa_DC! It's been some time since I wrote anything for TMNT, it feels a bit like putting on old shoes lmao. Thank you for reading!


End file.
